faderift | Skyhold

Skyhold

WHO: Anyone & everyone
WHAT: Open post for business as usual around Skyhold
WHEN: The first couple weeks of Harvestmere, 9:41 (aka October)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Please mark any necessary content warnings in thread subject lines. Also, make sure to check out the other log posts already made!

Far from the glamorous adventurous world-saving people signed up for, most of the hustle and bustle in Skyhold at present is cleaning. The Great Hall is a disaster, and crews are assigned to haul out the cracked and rotting planks fallen from the wide-open roof, and tear down the vines covering the walls. Ivy encrusts the main staircase outside and many of the fortress walls and is cleared in section while other groups assess or begin shoring up the stonework as it's revealed. There are scaffolding to build, materials to sort, crates to unload, tents to stitch together or set-up, and on and on and on, endless mundane chores vital to the survival of the organization.

When not hard at work, people cluster around fires across the courtyards. Many mingle freely, going about their business, running errands and messages, planning scouting missions, tallying up supplies, distributing or playing with the sending crystals that were found in a basement vault and which a group of mages have just today finished preparing for use. Once a good number have been passed around and the first Inquisition-wide transmission made messages start being broadcast; maybe you can help someone out.

The rebel mages and renegade templars mainly keep to themselves at opposite sides of the complex given the choice. Mages assist with healing and research and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Templars help train recruits in swordforms and basic combat techniques or spar with the more advanced and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Despite having all pledged themselves to the Inquisition, they still feel like separate factions and tension between them is palpable wherever they cross paths.

Like at meals, or the communal message board in the courtyard, or at the Herald's Rest. The mess hall/tavern is so new it still smells of sawdust, and its stock has been limited to one type of strong ale until today, when a shipment of West Hill brandy has finally arrived. The mood in the place is convivial in celebration of that, but there's still plenty of muttering, especially as the night drags on and the discontented get further into their cups.

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"The patrols have been going well?" Zevran himself has been keeping to the fort proper rather than joining them due to strict orders from his surgeon to not strain his arm, but it has not prevented him from checking in with them whenever they slip back into the hold. Normally he approaches in a tavern with a pint of ale ready for them. They do the footwork, the price of a drink is not so large a thing.

Harding is busy with the last of her reports when Zevran approaches - not overly taxing work, just extra information the spymaster may find useful, how other agents performed and the like - but she nods, without looking up.

"As well as can be expected. I don't think anyone's used to... well, so much snow. One wrong step and you could easily end up on the worse end of a snow drift-"

She sighs, and now she does look up. For a second she forgets what she's talking about because up until recently she thought Dorian was the prettiest member of the Inquisition but he got knocked off that pedestal almost as soon as he climbed onto it. No, this elf is- wait, what was she saying again?

"-or, uh. I see you've brought ale?"

"In gratitude for your most respectable services, yes. I hope to be joining you as soon as I have finished establishing myself in the hold." Which will take a little longer, what with getting the armor adjusted, setting up a proper workbench for creating traps and urging along his poisonous plants.

The pint is offered with a smile- and as he slides into the chair across from her. Most do not mind talking shop provided a drink is purchased.

"You have not lost anyone truly, I hope? Digging oneself out is difficult. I've been on the wrong end of a drift before and if you are not prepared for it? Finding the surface takes forever."

His face likely helps with the establishing, she supposes. It's hard to forget.

Harding also stares for a second or two longer than she should, again blindsided by complex things like words and also ale and he said joining the scouts or something, but eventually, her brain catches up. She takes the pint with a nod of gratitude, and a smile of her own. She'll never say no to thanks for her work, especially the drink kind.

"The more the merrier, as they say. We'll be heading out beyond the valley soon enough, I'm sure." The Inquisition has survived the worst, and- they'll run out of mountain to scope, and they'll need allies. They can't mourn forever with the threat on the horizon. "The worst we've had is twisted ankles. Someone almost stepped through a slat in a barn roof that had been covered, but we got him out. If he'd gone under-"

She'd take solid ground and open sky over that possibility any day.

"Have you tried using a line to connect you as you scale the worst of the areas? It saved my traveling companions and I more than once while we attempted to scale a mountain." Or traverse the deep roads. Or- many moments, now that he thought of it. Were Fereldans always so prone to becoming lost, he wonders?

However did he not notice it?

What he does notice is the familiar expression of someone stunned by- well. Him. He can be a bit much in all the best ways and, perhaps, props his chin on his hand in such a way that the light should catch his hair and eyes, gilding them all the more golden and revealing the first few swirls of ink on his collarbones where his shirt is just slightly unlaced. "For me the most difficult part is sleeping in the cold. Bedrolls can only do so much."

"Huh." Harding gives that idea deserved consideration. "Can't say we've tried that. It wouldn't exactly work when we're trying to stay undercover, but when we're battling with nature to just stay alive... I mean, you're alive," and what a good thing that is ahem, "-and I take it your travelling companions are too?" If they did battle nature and stay alive, then it has a great deal of merit, in that case. She might just be taking that one. What do you know? He's pretty and he has good ideas. She chuckles. "Thanks for the suggestion."

But then he's doing that? Thing? With his face? And the light, which frames him just so? Maker, and his accent isn't helping matters. It reminds her of honey, if honey were to have a sound, which it doesn't, and- he has to know he's doing that, right? Right?

"I find a fire helps. And companions." She pauses, as if realising what she sort-of-said. "In. Separate bedrolls."

Oh yes, he knows he is doing it, and oh yes, he knows what it does to people. Most often it is a tease and considering he hopes to work with her? It may be here as well. But someone that works so hard certainly deserves to have someone pretty to look at and to look at her as well- especially since she's plenty pretty herself.

Something about freckles. Terribly compelling.

"I have found the extra bedroll to defeat the purpose of having a companion help warm me through the cold nights."

If she's embarrassed, she doesn't show it; just blinks, and half smiles back at him, which has been known to emphasise the freckles and make her seem mischevious. She can do the playful thing back, right? It's just banter. And if he keeps doing that thing with his face and his voice, she doesn't really object.

"I bet. How often does that extra bedroll disappear?"

And now she smiles and it is mangificent. All playful cheeks and curving lips and Zevran would be a fool not to take the bait as given. He tips his head forward enough for a few strands of hair to fall over his shoulder, brushing against his cheek. The contrast is, as he has been told, striking.

"As often as my companion finds agreeable." See? He is a respectful Lothario.

Now that smile is all a smirk. Is she impressed or just coy or none of the above? A lady never tells. Harding sits a little straighter, folding her arms against the table as she leans forward herself.

Huh, the angle is better just here. Consider her struck, and, y'know, just stay like that forever.

"And do they? Find it agreeable?"

He can't quite get a bead on her- and that is more exciting than it should be. He lets his voice drop low, as though spelling a secret only for her ears. Voice warm with promise he murmurs. "Far more than agreeable, Piccola."

She does like the way he says that, it's true. A noise of agreement - maybe consideration, maybe not - is all he gets for a few long, laborious seconds, coupled with that same grin.

And then, just like that, she stops leaning forward. "Interesting. Can't say I'd ever use that information, but interesting."

Well, she didn't say no, but she is smirking good and proper.

...What?

He. What? Usually this is where the flirting becomes more intense, not less. What just happened?

His surprise is fleeting, his smile wide. "It is an offer that stands from now till the end of days."

However fleeting, she catches it just enough for that smirk to spread - you just got purposefully outplayed by Scout Harding, is what happened. Sorry, handsome stranger - she requires a little more wining and dining and wooing than that, as pretty as your face is (and the rest of you also likely is).

But she chuckles, none-the-less, his answer endearing him to her. "Maybe I'll think about it. Does an offer like that come with a name?"

Handsome stranger works, but she's sure you have something more personable.

It is not often someone outmanuvers him. He is impressed- which only makes him want her all the more. Of course the round goes to her, the rest is his to make up. He shall manage. Somehow.

"Zevran Arainai, at your service." He offers his hand, long fingered and warm.

She takes it, with a strong grip and a firm nod. She doesn't wink, but she might as well have with the curve to her lips.

"Scout Harding," she says in return.

"A pleasure to meet you, Harding." He squeezes her hand in turn, leaning back out of so a seductive pose and settling into something more casual.

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Skyhold

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